POLITICS

Mantashe shouldn't get caught up in succession race politics – ANCYL

Mlondi Mkhize |

18 October 2017

Youth league welcomes reshuffle, calls on those who are against it to stop passing mischievous comments

Statement of the ANCYL on Cabinet reshuffle

17 October 2017

The African National Congress Youth League has noted the Cabinet reshuffle as done by the His Excellency President Jacob Zuma. The ANCYL comprehends this reshuffle to be informed by the assessment of the work performed by various departments. Secondly the ANCYL receives this reshuffle against the background that the Ministry of Higher Education and Training did not have a deputy in the ministry.

The ANCYL welcomes these effected changes with high hope that the new Minister and deputy Minister will help speed up the process of free education for the poor and the needy. We want to call on all those who are aggrieved by the reshuffle to stop passing mischievous comments . The ANC remains the only organization that deploys its members, leadership and cadres to various institutions of government and therefore no one should think that the His Excellency has offended a component of the alliance. Dr Bonginkosi Nzimade is deployed by the ANC, no one else.

The ANCYL, calls on those who are using this to drive a wedge between President Zuma and SACP leadership to stop doing so. If His Excellency was fighting with leaders of the SACP cdes like Buti Manamela, Thulasi Nxesi, Senzeni Zokwana, Jeff Radebe, Jeremy Cronin, and Ben Martins, amongst others, would have been recalled. We want to caution cde Solly Mapaila the First Deputy General Secretary of the SACP to stop with his posture because it is not helping the alliance. It is perpetuating differences and making the vanguard Party to be viewed and be treated like a cde Dr Blade entity and vanguard for him not the working class.

The ANCYL is utterly disturbed, to say the least, by the apolitical utterances made by the Secretary-General of the ANC, Comrade Gwede Mantashe on consultative reshuffling. The SG tacitly insinuates that the officials were not consulted. By so doing the SG is directly casting aspersions on President Zuma as being non-consultative. It is a known fact that 2017 is a silly-season, we therefore request the SG, as the engine of the organisation to own up to the decisions of the officials and not to allow himself to be caught in the succession race politics thereby compromising the integrity of the very important office of the Secretary General.

We congratulate ANC deployees in their new cabinet responsibilities and further urge them to work within the framework of a collective as led by President Jacob Zuma in vociferously championing the struggles of our people in pursuance of radical economic transformation and not to be deterred by mourners.